But  "  '  - 


ADDRESS 


OF 


HON.  JOHN  S.  PRESTON, 


COMMISSIONER  FROM  SOOTH  CAROLINA, 


To  the  Convention  of  Yix^xnm,  3F elbruarg  19,  iooi, 


COLUMBIANS.   C.i 

STEAM  POWER-PRESS  OF  R.  W,  GIBBES. 

1861, 


j;  txw->^^— i^ 


The  University  of 
North  Carolina  Library 


From  the 
ERNEST  HAYWOOD  LIBRARY 

Established  in  Memory  of 

John  Haywood,  Trustee  1789-1827 

Edmund  Burke  Haywood,  1843-46 

Ernest  Haywood,  '80 

by 

Burke  Haywood  Bridgers,  '03 


ADDRESS 


or 


HON.  JOHN  S.  PRESTON, 


COMMISSIONER  FROM  SOUTII  CAROLINA, 


To  i\e  Convention  of  Yircjmxa,  f  elmiar^  12,  18 01. 


COLUMBIA,   S.   C: 

STEAM  POWER-PRESS  OP  R.  W.  GIBBES. 

1861. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://archive.org/details/addressofhonjohnOOpres 


ADDRESS. 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  Virginia : 

I  have  the  honor  to  present  to  you  my  credentials  as  Com- 
missioner from  the  Government  of  South  Carolina  to  the  Con- 
vention of  the  people  of  Virginia.  On  these  credentials  being 
duly  received  by  you,  I  am  instructed  by  my  Government  to 
lay  before  you  the  causes  which  induced  the  State  of  South 
Carolina  to  withdraw  from  the  United  States,  and  resume  the 
powers  heretofore  delegated  by  her  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  of  America. 

In  performing  this  duty,  I  desire  to  announce  to  you  that  it 
is  no  part  of  my  purpose,  nor  is  it  the  wish  of  my  Govern- 
ment, that  I  should  make  an  argument  before  you  in  proof  of 
the  right  of  secession.  My  Government  has  assumed  that 
right  in  her  sovereign  capacity,  and  my  ministry  here  is  to 
recite  the  causes  which  that  Government  has  deemed  sufficient 
to  enforce  upon  her  the  necessity  of  exercising  that  right. 

It  will  be  sufficient  for  me  to  recall  to  your  consideration  a 
few  historical  facts,  bearing  upon  the  relations  of  the  States 
composing  the  late  American  Confederation.  You  will  re- 
member that  the  American  Colonies  of  Great  Britain,  save  by 
contiguity  of  territory,  had  no  nearer  community  of  Govern- 
ment than  they  had  with  the  Colonies  of  the  East  Indies. 
They  were  united  in  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain,  and  when 
that  union  was  dissolved,  each  Colony  was  remitted  to  its  own 
ministry,  as  completely  as  if  they  were  in  different  regions  of 
the  Empire.  Being  adjacent,  and  having  identical  grievances, 
they  met  and  consulted  at  different  times  and  places,  in  various 
forms  of  convention,  but  generally  in  Congress,  as  of  acknowl- 
edged independent  powers.     They  began  the  war  with  the 

• 


mother  country — each  Colore  for  itself — and  the  battles  of 
Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill  in  Massachusetts,  and  of  Fort 
Moultrie  in  South  Carolina,  and  the  burning  of  Norfolk  in 
Virginia,  preceded  the  declaration  of  the  4th  of  July,  1776. 
The  Colonies  then  in  Congress,  on  that  day,  declared  them- 
selves free  and  independent  States,  and  proceeded  to  act  as 
such  in  forming  alliances  with  each  other  for  their  common 
defence  against  the  power  from  which  they  had  absolved 
themselves.  They  also  instantly,  and  severally,  began  to  form 
independent  civil  organizations.  When  these  were  completed 
as  efficiently  as  circumstances  would  allow,  and  manifested  by 
their  separate  contributions  to  the  common  cause,  as  sovereign 
and  independent  powers  they  formed  a  compact,  in  which  this 
sovereignty  and  independence  were  expressly  declared.  As 
you  may  remember,  gentlemen — for  I  am  now  reciting  what 
is  present  to  your  memory,  with  a  view  to  bring  it  to  your 
consideration,  trusting,  as  I  may  recite  it,  you  will  discover 
what  has  been  certainly  running  through  the  minds  of  my 
people  for  years  past — finding  that,  individually,  they  could 
not  carry  on  this  contest  for  independence  and  sovereignty, 
they  united  in  certain  articles,  which  are  known  as  the  Arti- 
cles of  Confederation.  In  these  articles  there  is  the  reiteration 
of  the  original  declaration  of  the  sovereignty  and  independ- 
ence of  the  parties  to  it.  All  rights,  all  powers,  all  jurisdic- 
tion, therein  delegated,  produce  no  limitation  upon  the  ultimate 
and  discretionary  sovereignty  of  the  parties  to  it.  In  the  sub- 
sequent treaty  with  Great  Britain,  that  Government  recognized 
the  agency  of  the  Confederation,  but  acknowledged  the 
States — severally,  by  name — as  sovereign  and  independent 
States.  Four  years  later,  the  sovereign  parties  became  dissat- 
isfied with  the  league,  on  account  of  alleged  inefficiency  in 
regard  to  interests  which  were  common  and  identical.  The 
States  virtually  resumed  their  original  status  of  segregation, 
and  the  remedies  proposed  for  the  inefficiency  of  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  resulted  in  the  new  compact,  under  the  name 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the  Amendments 


thereto,  proposed  by  the  States  individually.  In  this  instru- 
ment there  is  not  one  word  or  phrase  capable  of  being  con- 
strued into  a  lapse  or  prescription  of  the  sovereignty  and 
independence  of  the  contracting  powers.  On  the  contrary, 
there  is  an  express,  pervading  and  emphatic  reservation  of  all 
powers  not  expressly  granted.  The  whole  spirit  and  genius  of 
that  Constitution  recognizes  the  sovereignty  of  the  States,  and 
its  own  mere  agency  in  the  exercise  of  deputed  and  limited 
functions.  The  States — separately,  individually,  independ- 
ently-— with  various  reservations,  and  at  different  periods  of 
time,  consented  to  this  contract.  Nothing  legitimate  has  since 
occurred  to  change  their  relations  to  each  other  under  this  con- 
tract. On  the  contrary,  the  contemporaneous  and  juxta-con- 
temporaneous  construction,  especially  that  of  Virginia  by  Mr. 
Madison,  characterized  by  your  distinguished  President  the 
chief  framer  of  the  Constitution,  declares  that  "  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  was  formed  by  the  sanction  of  the 
States,  given  by  each  in  its  sovereign  capacity.  *  *  *  * 
The  States,  then,  being  the  parties  to  the  constitutional  com- 
pact, and  in  their  sovereign  capacity,  it  follows,  of  necessity, 
that  there  can  be  no  tribunal  above  their  authority,  to  decide 
in  the  last  resort  whether  the  compact  made  by  them  be  vio- 
lated; and,  consequently,  as  parties  to  it,  they  must  themselves 
decide,  in  the  last  resort,  such  questions  as  may  be  of  sufficient 
magnitude  to  require  their  interposition."  By  questions  of 
"sufficient  magnitude,"  the  interpreter  means  those  questions 
which  involve  the  prerogative  of  that  sovereignty  itself,  and 
those  which  are  of  sufficient  magnitude  to  require  its  interpo- 
sition, and  such  as  are  of  themselves  dangerous  to  the  great 
purposes  for  which  the  Constitution  was  established;  and 
among  these  great  purposes  we  know  there  is  exjtressed  those 
of  justice;  right,  equality,  general  welfare,  and  the  blessings  of 
liberty  to  us  and  our  posterity. 

On  this  relation  of  the  States  to  each  other,  and  to  the  Con- 
federation formed  by  them,  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  then, 
assume  that  their  sovereignty  has  never  been  divided ;  that  it 


6 

has  never  been  alienated,  and  that  it  is  imprescriptible.  That 
it  has  not  been  impaired,  by  the  fact  that  they  have  volun- 
tarily refrained  from  the  exercise  of  certain  specified  functions, 
and  that  it  may  be  exercised  at  their  will  through  their  own 
established  forms.  They,  therefore,  contend  that,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  their  unrestricted  sovereignty,  and  on  the  great  prin- 
ciple of  the  right  of  a  sovereign  State  to  govern  itself,  even 
when  it  involves  the  destruction  of  a  compact  which  has  been 
vitiated  so  as  to  become  an  imminent  danger,  they  have  the 
right  to  abrogate  that  compact,  so  far  as  concerns  themselves, 
because  it  is  dangerous  to  their  happiness,  liberty  and  safety. 

Having  ventured  to  present  these  facts  and  principles  to 
your  consideration,  I  will  proceed  to  state  the  more  prominent 
and  immediate  causes  which  have  induced  South  Carolina  to 
abrogate  her  consent  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

As  preliminary  to  this  statement,  I  would  say,  that,  as  early 
as  the  year  1820,  the  manifest  tendency  of  the  legislation  of 
the  General  Government  was  to  restrict  the  territorial  ex- 
pansion of  the  slaveholding  States.  This  is  very  evident  in 
all  the  contests  of  that  period ;  and  had  they  been  successful 
to  the  extent  that  some  hoped,  even  then  the  line  that  cut  off 
the  purchase  from  France  might  have  been  projected  eastward 
to  the  bottom  of  the  Chesapeake,  and  sent  Virginia  and  half 
of  Tennessee,  and  all  of  Kentucky.  (Virginia  proper,)  after 
she  had  given  to  non-slavery  her  north-western  empire,  to  the 
non-slavery  section.  That  might  be  the  line.  The  policy, 
however,  has  been  pushed  so  far  as  to  deprive  this  Southern 
section  of  that  line  of  at  least  seven-tenths  of  the  acquisitions 
of  the  Government.  Besides  this,  I  would  state,  as  prelimin- 
ary, that  a  large  portion  of  the  revenue  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  has  always  been  drawn  from  duties  on 
imports.  Now,  the  products  that  have  been  necessary  to 
purchase  these  imports,  were  at  one  time  almost  exclusively, 
and  have  always  mainly  been,  the  result  of  slave  labor,  and, 
therefore,  the  burden  of  the  revenue  duties  upon  imports  pur- 
chased by  these  exports  must  fall  upon  the  producer,  who 


happens,  in  this  case,  also  to  be  the  consumer  of  the  im- 
ports. 

In  addition  to  this,  it  may  be  stated,  that  at  a  very  early 
period  of  the  existence  of  this  Government,  the  Northern 
people,  from  a  variety  of  causes,  entered  upon  the  industries 
of  manufacture  and  of  commerce,  but  of  agriculture  scarcely 
to  the  extent  of  self-support.  This  may  have  arisen  from  a 
variety  of  causes:  among  them,  perhaps,  an  uncongenial 
climate,  a  barren  soil,  but  a  sea-coast  adapted  to  commerce, 
besides  an  inherent  tendency  upon  the  part  of  the  people  of 
these  latitudes  to  the  arts  of  manucraft  and  traffic.  And  while, 
therefore,  it  was  important  that  all  the  sources  of  the  revenue 
should  be  kept  up  to  meet  the  increasing  expenses  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, it  also  manifestly  became  of  great  importance  that 
these  articles  of  manufacture  in  which  they  have  been  engaged 
should  be  subject  to  the  purchase  of  their  confederates.  They, 
therefore,  invented  a  system  of  duties,  partial  and  discrimin- 
ating, by  which  the  whole  burden  of  the  revenue  fell  upon 
those  who  produced  the  articles  of  export  which  purchased 
the  articles  of  import,  and  which  articles  of  import  were  con- 
sumed mainly,  or  to  a  great  extent,  by  those  who  produced 
the  exports. 

The  State  of  South  Carolina,  being  at  the  time  one  of  the 
largest  exporters  and  consumers  of  imports,  was  so  oppressed 
by  the  operations  of  this  system  upon  her,  that  she  was  driven 
to  the  necessity  of  interposing  her  sovereign  reservation  to 
arrest  it,  so  far  as  she  was  concerned.  This  interposition, 
together  with  the  rapid  spread  of  the  principle  of  free  trade 
all  over  the  world,  did  arrest  the  iniquity  in  the  shape  in 
which  it  was  then  presented.  It  could  no  longer  be  the 
avowed  policy  of  the  Government  to  tax  one  section  for  the 
purpose  of  building  up  another.  But  so  successful  had  been 
the  system — to  such  an  extent  had  it  already,  in  a  few  years, 
been  pushed — so  vast  had  been  its  accumulations  of  capital — 
so  vastly  had  it  been  diffused  throughout  its  ramifications — as 
seemingly  to  interweave  the  industries  of  the  sections  almost 


8 

into  the  life  of  each  other.  As  mechanics,  manufacturers, 
shippers,  merchants,  bankers,  and  in  all  the  intermediary  pur- 
suits, the  Northern  people  seem  to  have  become  almost  neces- 
sary to  the  maintenance  of  the  industry  of  the  South.  In 
these  relations  they  had  crept  into  every  crevice  of  an  affluent 
and  loose  economy,  and  made  themselves  so  convenient  to  it, 
that  we  began  to  think  them  vital  to  it;  and  they  grew  so 
great  and  waxed  so  strong,  as  they  fed  and  fattened  on  this 
sweating  giant  of  the  South,  that,  with  the  insolence  natural 
to  sudden  and  bloated  power,  they  began  to  claim  that  the 
laboring  monster  was  created  for  their  tributary. 

They  have  drawn  from  us  subsidies  which  might  have 
glutted  the  avarice  of  a  Roman  proconsul,  which,  in  one 
quarter  of  a  century,  have  builded  up  countless  cities,  rivaling 
in  wealth  the  richest  marts  of  the  old  world,  and  burdening 
every  sea  with  their  commerce,  and  which  have  covered  their 
granite  soil  with  palaces  and  smiling  gardens.  And  yet, 
strange,  anomalous  as  it  may  appear,  it  is  nevertheless  literally 
true,  that  while  they  were  thus  gathering  all  their  wealth  and 
power  from  this  source,  step  by  step,  latus  cum  latere,  with 
this  aggregation  there  was  growing  up  a  determined  purpose 
to  destroy  these  sources  of  their  power  and  grandeur.  I 
pretend  not  to  explain  it;  I  relate  it  as  history.  This,  gentle- 
men, brings  me  to  the  proximate  causes  which  it  is  my  mission 
to  lay  before  you. 

For  nearly  thirty  years,  the  people  of  the  non-slaveholding 
States  have  assailed  the  institution  of  African  slavery,  in 
every  form  in  which  our  political  connection  with  them  per- 
mitted them  to  approach  it.  During  all  that  period,  large 
masses  of  their  people,  with  a  persistent  fury,  maddened  by 
the  intoxication  of  the  wildest  fanaticism,  have  associated, 
with  the  avowed  purpose  of  effecting  the  abolition  of  slavery 
by  the  most  fearful  means  which  can  be  suggested  to  a  subject 
race :  arson  and  murder  are  the  charities  of  their  programme. 

1.  The  representatives  of  these  people  in  the  Federal  Legis- 
lature, acting  on  the  same  ultimate  idea,  have  endeavored  to 


9 

shape  tlie  legislation  of  the  Government  so  as  to  deprive  the 
slave  States  of  political  equality,  by  excluding  them  from  all 
interest  in  the  territorial  accretions  of  the  Government.  They 
have  succeeded  to  the  full  extent,  and  have  decreed  that  there 
shall  be  no  more  slave  States  admitted  to  the  Union. 

2.  A  majority  of  the  non-slaveholding  States  have  not  only 
refused  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  and 
laws  to  protect  slave  property,  but  have  made  stringent  laws 
to  prevent  the  execution  of  those  provisions. 

3.  Eight  of  those  States  have  made  it  a  criminal  offence  to 
execute  the  plainest  provisions  of  the  Constitution  which  give 
protection  to  a  property  furnishing  $250,000,000,  annually,  to 
the  commerce  of  the  country,  and  on  which  rests  the  entire 
order  of  civilization  of  twelve  millions  of  people.  In  not  one 
of  the  seventeen  non-slaveholding  States  can  a  citizen  of  a 
slave  State  claim  protection  for  his  main  property,  and  the 
person  of  the  citizen  in  numerous  cases  has  been  violated,  and 
in  many  of  these  cases  the  violence  has  resulted  in  murder. 

4.  The  citizens  of  not  less  than  five  non-slaveholding  States 
have  invaded  a  slaveholding  State,  and  proclaimed  the  anni- 
hilation of  its  people  by  servile  insurrection ;  two  of  these 
States  have  refused  to  surrender  the  felons  engaged  in  this  in- 
vasion ;  and  one  of  these  States — that  State  which  claims  the 
most  advanced  civilization  and  refinement,  which  claims  to 
represent  before  the  world  American  sentiment  and  American 
principles — -by  the  most  solemn  decree,  through  its  highest 
constituted  authority,  has  approved  of  that  invasion;  and 
large  bodies  of  people  throughout  the  whole  of  the  non- 
slaveholding  States  have  made  votive  offerings  to  the  memory 
of  John  Brown  and  his  associates. 

5.  The  most  populous,  and  by  far  the  most  potent,  of  the 
Confederates  has  proclaimed,  for  years,  through  its  representa- 
tives in  the  Federal  Senate,  that  it  is  a  conflict  of  life  and 
death  between  slavery  and  anti-slavery.  This  is  the  solemn 
decree,  through  its  constituted  forms,  of  a  State  containing 
near  three  millions  of  people,  who  conduct  four-fifths  of  the 

2 


10 

commerce  of  the  Republic.  Additional  millions  of  people, 
making  majorities  in  all  the  States,  and  many  of  the  States  by 
legislative  action,  have  declared  that  the  institution  of  slavery, 
as  it  exists  in  the  Southern  States,  is  an  offence  to  God,  and, 
therefore,  they  are  bound  by  the  most  sacred  duty  of  man  to 
exterminate  that  institution.  They  have  declared  and  acted 
upon  the  declaration,  that  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the 
Southern  States  is  an  offence  and  a  clanger  to  the  social  insti- 
tutions of  the  Northern  States,  and,  therefore,  they  are  bound 
by  the  instinct  of  moral  right  and  of  self-preservation  to  exter- 
minate slavery. 

Finally,  impelled  by  these  sacred  duties  to  God  and  their 
consciences,  and  by  the  scarcely  less  binding  impulses  of  self- 
protection,  after  years  of  earnest  labor  and  devotion  to  the 
purpose,  they  have  succeeded,  by  large  majorities  in  all  the 
non-slaveholding  States,  in  placing  the  entire  executive  power 
of  the  Federal  Government  in  the  hands  of  those  who  are 
pledged,  by  their  obligations  to  God,  by  their  obligations  to 
the  social  institutions  of  man,  by  their  obligation  of  self- 
preservation,  to  place  the  institution  of  slavery  in  a  course  of 
certain  and  final  extinction. 

That  is,  twenty  millions  of  people,  holding  one  of  the 
strongest  Governments  on  earth,  are  impelled,  by  a  perfect 
recognition  of  the  most  sacred  and  powerful  obligations  which 
fall  upon  man,  to  exterminate  the  vital  interests  of  eight  mil- 
lions of  people,  bound  to  them  by  contiguity  of  territory  and 
the  closest  political  relations.  In  other  words,  the  decree  in- 
augurated on  the  6th  of  November  was  the  annihilation  of  the 
people  of  the  Southern  States.  Now,  gentlemen,  the  people 
of  South  Carolina,  being  a  portion  of  those  who  come  within 
the  ban  of  this  decree,  had  only  to  ask  themselves:  Is  existence 
worth  a  struggle?  Their  answer  is  given  in  the  Ordinance  I 
have  had  the  honor  to  submit  to  you. 

I  see  before  me  wise  and  learned  men,  who  have  observed 
and  sounded  the  ways  of  human  life  in  all  its  records,  and 
many  who  have  been  chief  actors  in  some  of  its  gravest  scenes. 


11 

I  ask,  then,  if  in  all  their  lore  of  human  society,  they  find  a 
case  parallel  to  this?  South  Carolina  has  300,000  whites  and 
400,000  slaves;  the  whites  depend  on  their  slaves  for  their 
order  of  civilization  and  their  existence.  Twenty  millions  of 
people,  with  a  powerfully  organized  Government,  and  impelled 
by  the  most  sacred  duties,  decree  that  this  slavery  must  be 
exterminated.  I  ask  you,  Virginians,  is  right,  is  justice,  is 
existence,  worth  a  struggle? 

I  have  thus  recited,  in  general  terms,  the  causes  which  dic- 
tated the  action  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina.  Were  they 
given  in  detail  they  would  embrace  half  the  history  of  the 
Republic  for  half  the  period  of  its  existence.  From  the  acces- 
sion of  the  younger  Adams  to  this  hour,  the  main  internal 
history  of  the  United  States  has  been  one  untiring,  unfaltering 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  non-slaveholding  States  to  gain  the 
control  of  the  Federal  Government — first  to  restrict,  then  to 
subsidize,  and  now  to  destroy,  the  vital  interests  of  the  slave 
States.  Checked  or  baffled  in  one  course,  with  the  relentless 
energy  and  pertinacity  of  their  nature,  they  have  adopted 
another ;  retarded  for  a  time,  by  the  lingering  but  sturdy  frag- 
ments of  a  dying  patriotism  among  themselves,  or  the  banded 
resistance  of  their  victims,  they  have  still  held  on  with  the 
fierce  grip  of  avarice,  and  the  mad  rage  of  fanaticism,  until 
God  has  cursed  them  with  a  triumph  which  has  plunged  this 
continent  into  civil  war,  and  destroyed,  perhaps  forever,  the 
fairest  forms  which  human  philosophy  ever  grafted  upon  the 
institutions  of  man. 

ISTow,  gentlemen,  for  one  moment  look  at  the  converse  of 
this  picture. 

For  over  thirty  years — by  every  method  of  which  we  could 
avail  ourselves,  by  argument,  by  sovereign  protest,  by  warning, 
by  prayer,  by  every  energy,  and  every  attribute  we  could 
bring  to  bear — we  have  endeavored  to  avert  this  catastrophe. 
In  the  Federal  Legislature,  through  this  long  series  of  years, 
my  State  has  given  all  her  intelligence,  all  her  virtue,  and  all 
her  patriotism,  to  preserve  the  Constitutional  Union ;  and  that 


12 

she  had  intelligence,  that  she  had  patriotism,  that  she  had 
virtue,  is  in  proof  here  by  that  marble  {the  bust  of  Calhoun) 
sitting  in  the  hall  where  the  sovereignty  of  Virginia  is  consult- 
ing concerning  the  honor  and  the  rights  of  Virginia.  In  this 
struggle  Calhoun,  McDuffie,  Elmore  and  Butler  perished 
almost  literally  in  the  halls  of  the  Federal  Legislature.  Fail- 
ing in  this  more  than  a  year  ago,  seeing  the  storm  impending, 
seeing  the  waves  rising,  South  Carolina  sent  to  this  great,  this 
strong,  this  wise,  this  illustrious  Republic  of  Virginia,  a  grave 
commission,  the  purport  of  which,  with  your  permission,  gen- 
tlemen, I  will  venture  to  relate. 

"  Whereas,  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  by  her  Ordinance  of 
A.  D.  1852,  affirmed  her  right  to  secede  from  the  Confederacy 
whenever  the  occasion  should  arise,  justifying  her,  in  her  own 
judgment,  in  taking  that  step;  and,  in  the  resolution  adopted 
by  her  Convention,  declared  that  she  forbore  the  immediate 
exercise  of  that  right  from  considerations  of  expediency  only: 

"  And  whereas,  more  than  seven  years  have  elapsed  since 
that  Convention  adjourned,  and  in  the  intervening  time  the 
assaults  upon  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  upon  the  rights 
and  equality  of  the  Southern  States,  have  unceasingly  con- 
tinued with  increasing  violence,  and  in  new  and  more  alarm- 
ing forms ;  be  it  therefore, 

"1.  Resolved  unanimously,  That  the  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina, still  deferring  to  her  Southern  sisters,  nevertheless  re- 
spectfully announces  to  them,  that  it  is  the  deliberate  judgment 
of  this  General  Assembly  that  the  slaveholding  States  should  im-. 
mediately  meet  together  to  concert  measures  for  united  action. 

"2.  Resolved  unanimously,  That  the  foregoing  preamble 
and  resolution  be  communicated  by  the  Governor  to  all  the 
slaveholding  States,  with  the  earnest  request  of  this  State  that 
they  will  appoint  deputies,  and  adopt  such  measures  as,  in  their 
judgment,  will  promote  the  said  meeting. 

"  3.  Resolved  unanimotisly,  That  a  special  Commissioner  be 
appointed  by  his   Excellency  the  Governor  to  communicate 


13 

the  foregoing  preamble  and  resolutions  to  the  State  of  Vir- 
ginia, and  to  express  to  the  authorities  of  that  State  the  cordial 
sympathy  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina  with  the  people  of 
Virginia,  and  their  earnest  desire  to  unite  with  them  in  meas- 
ures of  common  defence." 

Unsuccessful  in  that  effort,  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  for 
the  first  time  in  over  twenty  years,  joined  with  the  party 
organizations  of  the  day,  and  honestly,  earnestly,  and  with 
anxious  solicitude,  gave  her  unanimous  vote  to  that  party,  the 
success  of  which  they  believed  would  prolong  the  Union. 
Defeated  in  this  last  hope — having  exhausted  argument, 
protest,  prayer,  counsel,  hope  itself — the  people  of  South  Caro- 
lina calmly,  unostentatiously,  without  clamor,  but  with  a 
determination  as  fixed  as  destiny,  ordained  this  Act,  in  these 
few  simple  words,  which  I  will  read  to  the  Convention : 

"  We,  the  people  of  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  in  Convention 
assembled,  do  declare  and  ordain,  and  it  is  hereby  declared 
and  ordained, 

That  the  Ordinance  adopted  by  us,  in  Convention,  on  the 
twenty-third  day  of  May,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  eighty-eight,  whereby  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  of  America  was  ratified,  and,  also,  all 
Acts  and  parts  of  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  this  State, 
ratifying  amendments  of  the  said  Constitution,  are  hereby 
repealed;  and  that  the  union  now  subsisting  between  South 
Carolina  and  other  States,  under  the  name  of  'The  United 
States  of  America,'  is  hereby  dissolved." 

Even  after  this  the  people  of  South  Carolina  are  not  satisfied. 
They  still  seek  counsel ;  they  still  seek  sympathy ;  they  still 
seek  aid,  in  the  protection  of  their  rights  and  their  honor;  and 
for  this  I  am  here  to-day. 

Now,  gentlemen,  notwithstanding  these  facts  I  have  endea- 
vored to  group  before  you — notwithstanding  this  labor,  this 


14 

long-suffering,  this  patience  I  have  endeavored  to  show  you  she 
has  practiced — throughout  this  whole  land,  over  all  Christen- 
dom, my  State  has  been  accused  of  "rash  precipitancy."  Is  it 
rash  precipitancy  to  step  out  of  the  pathway  when  you  hear 
the  thunder-crash  of  the  falling  avalanche?  Is  it  rash  precip- 
itancy to  seek  for  shelter  when  you  hear  the  hissing  of  the 
coming  tempest,  and  see  the  storm-cloud  close  down  upon  you? 
Is  it  rash  precipitancy  to  raise  your  hands  to  protect  your  heart? 

I  venture  to  assert,  that  never,  since  liberty  came  into  the 
institutions  of  man,  have  a  people  borne  with  more  patience, 
or  forborne  with  more  fortitude,  than  have  the  people  of  these 
Southern  States  in  their  relations  with  their  confederates.  As 
long  as  it  was  merely  silly  fanaticism  or  prurient  philanthropy 
which  proposed  our  destruction,  we  did  nothing — scarcely 
complained.  Even  when  partial  and  most  oppressive  taxation, 
continued  for  years,  ground  us  into  the  dust  of  poverty,  save 
for  a  moment  of  convulsive  struggle,  we  bore  it  patiently; 
even  when  many  of  our  confederates,  by  State  and  municipal 
regulations,  violated  provisions  of  our  compact  vital  to  us,  and 
hordes  of  their  people,  under  the  sanction  of  these  regulations, 
robbed  our  property  and  murdered  our  citizens;  even  when, 
under  the  same  sanction,  bands  of  wild  fanatics  invaded  slave 
States,  and  proclaimed  the  destruction  of  slavery  by  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  slaveholder,  and  States  and  cities  erected  shrines 
to  the  memory  of  the  felons;  when  one  confederate  demanded 
that  we  must  be  driven  from  the  civilization  of  the  age  in 
which  we  live,  and  another  sent  its  chief  representative  to 
defame  us  before  the  civilized  world ;  beneath  all  these  enor- 
mities, we  continued  to  give  our  blood,  our  gold  and  our  sweat 
to  build  up  the  grandeur  and  maintain  the  power  of  that 
Republic.  And  when  there  was  added  to  this  all  that  baffled 
avarice,  malignant  fanaticism  and  moral  turpitude  could  devise 
to  vilify,  wrong  and  irritate  us,  we  still  gave  our  blood  and 
treasure,  and  offered  our  hands,  and  called  them  brethren.  I 
draw  no  fancy  picture,  I  use  no  declamatory  assertions. 

There  is  not  a  man  in  this  Convention  who  may  not  cite 


15 

twenty  cases  to  meet  every  item  of  this  catalogue.  But  when, 
at  last,  this  fanaticism  and  eager  haste  for  rapine,  mingling 
their  foul  purposes,  engendered  those  fermenting  millions  who 
have  seized  the  Constitution  and  distorted  its  most  sacred  form 
into  an  instrument  of  our  ruin,  why  then  longer  submission 
seemed  to  us  not  only  base  cowardice,  but  absolute  fatuity. 
In  South  Carolina  we  felt  that,  to  remain  one  hour  under  such 
a  domination,  we  would  merit  the  destruction  earned  by  our 
own  folly  and  baseness.  We  felt  that  if  there  was  one  son  of 
a  Carolina  sire  who  would  counsel  such  submission,  there  was 
not  a  hill-side  or  a  plain,  from  Eutaw  to  the  Cowpens,  from 
which  the  spirit  of  his  offended  sire  would  not  start  forth  to 
shame  him  from  the  land  he  desecrated.  "We  did  not  find  air 
enough  in  that  little  State  to  give  breath  to  such  counsel; 
there  was  not  firm  earth  enough  there  for  one  such  counsellor 
to  stand  upon. 

I  pray  you,  gentlemen  of  Virginia,  to  pardon  me  for  re- 
ferring with  some  particularity  to  the  position  of  my  State  in 
connection  with  these  matters,  because  she  has  been  much 
spoken  of,  and  not  much  praised.  I  am  here  as  the  Commis- 
sioner of  these  people,  certainly  not  their  eulogist.  I  am  sent 
here,  as  I  thought,  mainly  because  among  them  I  have  always, 
with  some  pride,  proclaimed  that  I  sprang  from  this  soil,  and 
because  they  believe  that  I  would  tell  an  honest,  earnest  story 
of  their  wrongs  and  trials;  and  if  you  will  permit  me,  I  will 
still  further  allude  to  it.  Never,  gentlemen,  since  liberty 
begun  her  struggles  in  the  world,  has  a  mighty  drama,  to  be 
enacted  on  the  trembling  stage  of  man's  affairs,  been  opened 
with  a  spectacle  of  purer  moral  sublimity  than  that  which  has 
been  manifested  in  this  revolution  in  which  we  are  now  en- 
gaged. Scarcely  had  this  decree  of  our  subjection  been  borne 
to  our  ears  on  the  Northern  breeze,  than,  as  if  from  the  very 
caverns  of  the  earth,  there  rose  up  one  voice,  one  voice  only, 
from  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  who  shouted  back,  resistance 
to  the  death.  Their  Legislature,  then  in  session,  caught  that 
spirit,  and  with  one  voice,  one  voice  only,  proclaimed,  resist- 


16 

ance  to  the  death.  The  people  of  the  State,  again  in  their 
sovereign  capacity,  as  you  are  here,  with  one  voice,  one  voice 
only,  ordained,  resistance  to  the  death.  And  now,  there  is  not, 
in  the  borders  of  that  little  State,  one  man,  from  sixteen  to 
sixty,  who  can  walk  or  stand,  who  is  not  armed,  standing  ready 
to  resist  to  the  death.  [Applause.]  We  are  very  small— very 
weak-— but  if  that  fire-storm  with  which  we  are  threatened 
should  fall  upon  us  and  consume  us,  hereafter  the  pilgrim  of 
liberty,  perhaps  from  this  State,  who  may  be  searching  beneath 
the  ruins  of  Charleston,  will  find  the  skeleton  of  our  sentinel 
standing  at  our  sea-gate. 

Believe  it  not,  sir,  that  in  taking  this  position  we  have  been 
forgetful  of  the  past,  or  reckless  of  the  future.  No,  sir!  it  is 
the  great  past,  and  our  sacred  obligations  to  the  future,  which 
have  nerved  us  to  the  act.  It  was  the  splendor  of  the  past 
which  dazzled  our  eyes,  until  the  substance  of  liberty  had 
almost  slipped  from  our  grasp.  For  years  and  years  we  paused, 
as  we  held  up  the  curtain  and  gazed  back  on  the  unforgotten 
glories  of  the  hallowed  past,  as  we  beheld  that  fairest  temple 
in  which  liberty  had  ever  found  a  shrine ;  that  which  Wash- 
ington and  Jefferson,  Adams  and  Franklin,  Henry  and  Madi- 
son, the  Lees,  Masons,  Rutledges  and  Pinckneys — a  conclave 
of  demi-gods — had  builded  up  as  a  tabernacle  for  us  to  dwell 
in  forever,  and  consecrated  it  with  the  blood  of  our  own 
fathers;  that  citadel  of  liberty;  that  palladium  of  human 
right;  that  precious  muniment  of  human  hope;  that  refuge  of 
hope  all  over  the  earth ;  that  world,  won  from  the  wilderness 
to  God  and  liberty.  Sir,  with  pious  reverence  we  looked  upon 
all  this ;  and  yet,  with  these  hands,  we  tore  it  down ;  with 
these  feet,  we  trampled  it  out  of  life;  with  this  breath,  we 
scattered  the  fragments  on  the  winds;  and,  yet,  we  do  not 
tremble;  we  are  not  appalled;  our  hands  are  unstained,  pure, 
clear,  unterrified,  as  we  raise  them  in  confident  appeal  to  the 
God  of  Truth,  Justice  and  Right.  Armed  in  this  panoply,  we 
drop  the  curtain,  and  are  ready  to  move  onward  through  the 
coining  scenes  of  this  solemn  drama. 


17 

Gentlemen  of  Virginia,  the  people  of  these  Southern  States 
are  do  noisy  faction,  clamoring  for  place  and  power;  no 
hungry  rabble,  answering  in  blood  to  every  appeal  to  brutal 
passion;  no  shouting  mob,  ready  to  take  for  their  Government 
a  glittering  epigram,  or  a  fustian  theory.  They  arc  not  cant- 
ing fanatics,  festering  in  the  licentiousness  of  abolition  and  amal- 
gamation. Their  liberty  is  not  a  painted  strumpet,  straggling 
through  the  streets.  Nor  does  their  truth  need  to  baptise 
itself  in  pools  of  blood.  They  are  a  grave,  calm,  prosperous, 
religious  people;  the  holders  of  the  most  majestic  civilization; 
the  inheritors,  by  right,  of  the  fairest  estate  of  liberty;  fight- 
ing for  that  liberty ;  fighting  for  their  fathers'  graves;  standing 
athwart  their  hearth-stones,  and  before  their  chamber  doors. 
In  this  fight,  for  a  time,  my  little  State  stood  alone;  that  little 
State,  around  whose  outermost  borders  the  gnns  fired  at  the 
Capital  might  almost  be  heard;  whose  scope  of  sky  is  scarce 
large  enough  for  one  star  to  glitter  in;  so  small,  so  weak,  so 
few,  we  began  this  fight  alone  against  millions ;  and  had  millions 
been  piled  on  millions,  under  God,  in  such  a  fight,  we  would 
have  triumphed.  But,  sir,  that  God  cares  for  Liberty,  Truth 
and  Right  among  His  people — and  we  are  no  longer  alone. 
Our  own  children  from  Florida  and  Alabama  answered  to  the 
maternal  call;  and  our  great  sister  Georgia  marshalled  forth 
her  giant  progeny;  the  voice  of  Quitman  came  up  out  of  his 
grave  on  the  Mississippi;  and  Louisiana  proved  herself  the  off- 
spring of  the  "Apostle  of  Liberty;''  and,  now,  young  Texas 
raises  her  giant  form,  and  takes  her  place  at  the  head  of  this 
majestic  column  of  Confederated  Sovereignties.  And,  sir, 
wherever  Virginia  has  a  son  beyond  her  borders,  his  voice  is 
known,  because  he  speaks  in  the  ancient  tongue  of  his  mother. 
Mr.  President,  I,  one  of  the  humblest  of  these  sons,  have  told 
my  adopted  brethren — I  have  promised  them — that  before  the 
spring  grass  grows  long  enough  to  weave  a  chaplet  of  triumph, 
they  will  hear  the  stately  tramp  as  of  a  mighty  host  of  men — 
a  sound  as  if  the  armies  of  Destiny  were  afoot ;  and  they  will 
see  floating  above  that  host  a  banner,  whose  whole  history  is 
3 


18 

one  blaze  of  glory,  and  not  one  blot  of  shame;  and  coming  up 
from  that  host,  they  will  hear  one  voice,  aye,  like  their  own, 
one  voice  only ;  the  resounding  echo  of  that  voice  which  first 
thundered  into  the  hearts  of  your  god-like  sires,  "Give  me 
liberty,  or  give  me  death!"  and  on  that  banner  will  be  written 
the  unsullied  name  of  Virginia.  The  world  knows  her  history, 
and  knows  no  history  above  it  in  the  niche  of  fame — and 
knowing  it,  none  dare  doubt  where  Virginia  will  be  found 
when  her  own  offspring,  divine  liberty  and  justice,  call  her  to 
the  fight.  Have  I  promised  too  much  in  the  name  of  our 
mother?  In  us,  the  doubt  would  be  worse  than  blasphemy. 
She  will  take  her  place  in  the  front  ranks.  She  will  be,  as  she 
has  been  for  one  hundred  years,  the  foremost  of  the  world  in 
the  cause  of  liberty.  She  will  stand  here  with  her  uplifted 
arm,  not  only  as  a  barrier,  but  the  guiding-star  to  an  Empire, 
stretching  from  her  feet  to  the  tropics,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific;  grander  in  proportions,  stronger  in  power,  freer  in 
right,  than  any  which  has  preceded  it;  which  will  divide  the 
rule  of  the  Atlantic,  be  felt  in  the  far-heaving  waves  of  the 
Pacific,  and  will  own  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean 
Sea. 

Mr.  President,  I  appear  before  you  in  behalf  of  a  portion  of 
those  who  believe  in  this  coming  greatness,  and  who  have  by 
cruel  wrong  and  injustice  been  driven  from  their  inheritance 
in  the  mighty  past;  and  I  ask  Virginia  to  come  in  the  majesty 
of  her  august  history,  and  the  power  of  her  courage  and 
strength,  and  command  this  transcendent  future. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  endeavored  to  confine  my  words  spe- 
cifically to  the  matter  of  my  own  mission  here.  I  fear,  sir, 
that  the  scene  and  the  place  have  deluded  me  to  go,  somewhat 
erratically,  beyond  my  intention;  but  I  have  not  ventured  to 
discuss,  before  this  Convention,  those  essential  principles  on 
which  our  order  of  liberty  was  institutionized  in  America, 
after  centuries  of  struggle,  from  Runymede  to  Yorktown,  nor 
their  destructive  violation,  involved  in  the  daring  asoressions 
upon   the  confederate   and  absolute   rights  of  the   Southern 


19 

people,  by  the  people  and  States  of  the  North.  I  cannot  teach 
this  Convention.  There  are  many  men  here  who  may  truly 
use  the  words  of  the  Greeks,  "  We  thank  God  we  are  as  wise 
and  virtuous  as  our  fathers."  Such  men  cannot  be  taught, 
either  the  principles  or  the  duties  of  liberty  and  truth.  That 
knowledge,  gentlemen  of  Virginia,  is  your  birth-right. 

I  will,  however,  ask  a  few  minutes  more  of  your  time,  while 
I  attempt,  very  rapidly,  and  in  the  most  general  terms,  to 
exhibit  some  of  the  fundamental  causes  which  the  people  of 
the  South  regard  as  justifying  their  belief  that  there  never 
ought  to  be,  and  that  there  never  can  be,  a  reconstruction  of 
the  late  Federal  Union.  Leaving  out  of  consideration  the 
fact,  that  the  acquiescence,  which  originally  founded  the 
Union,  was  enforced  by  necessity  rather  than  free  consent,  the 
truth  seems  evident,  to  every  mind  which  dares  to  speculate 
advisedly  on  the  manifest  principles  of  that  revolution  we  are 
now  enacting,  that  they  do  involve  fundamental  and  irrecon- 
cilable diversities,  between  the  systems  on  which  slaveholding 
and  non-slaveholding  communities  may  endure.  We  believe 
that  these  repellent  diversities  pertain  to  every  attribute  which 
belongs  to  the  two  systems,  and,  consequently,  that  this  revo- 
lution— this  separation — -this  disintegration — is  no  accident; 
that  it  is  no  merely  casual  result  of  a  temporary  cause;  that  it 
is  no  evanescent  bubble  of  popular  error  or  irritation;  that  it 
is  no  dream  of  philosophy ;  nor  is  it  the  achievement  of  indi- 
vidual ambition.  It  has  a  cause  more  profound  and  pervading 
than  all  these.  It  is  not  only  a  revolution  of  actual  material 
necessity,  but  it  is  a  revolution  resulting  from  the  deepest  con- 
victions, the  ideas,  the  sentiments,  the  moral  and  intellectual 
necessities,  of  earnest  and  intelligent  men.  It  is  not  only  the 
primeval  and  never-dying  struggle  of  the  liberty  of  labor 
against  the  despotism  of  power;  but  it  is  that  still  sterner  con- 
flict which  shivered  Greece  and  disintegrated  the  huge  and 
solid  mass  of  Rome;  which  gathers  into  its  contending  armies 
all  the  necessities,  the  customs,  the  laws,  the  religions,  the  sen- 
timents, and  the  passions,  which  constitute  the  civilization  of 


20 

man.  Ton  may,  as  you  are  at  this  moment  doing,  centralize  a 
coercive  power  at  Washington,  stronger  than  the  Praetorian 
bands,  when  the  Roman  eagles  shadowed  the  earth  "from 
Lnsitania  to  the  Caucasus;"  hut  you  cannot  come  nearer 
coalescing  the  people  of  Virginia  and  the  people  of  Vermont, 
the  people  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  people  of  the  Gulf, 
than  did  Rome  to  make  one  of  the  Gaul  and  the  Daciau,  the 
Briton  and  the  Ionian.  No  community  of  origin — no  commu- 
nity of  language,  law  or  religion,  can  amalgamate  a  people 
whose  severance  is  proclaimed  by  the  rigid  requisitions  of  ma- 
terial necessity.  Nature  forbids  African  slavery  at  the  North. 
Southern  civilization  cannot  exist  without  African  slavery. 
None  but  an  equal  race  can  labor  at  the  North.  None  but  a 
subject  race  will  labor  at  the  South.  Destroy  involuntary 
labor,  and  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  must  be  remitted  to  the 
latitudes  whence  it  sprung. 

Now,  for  these  and  other  reasons,  we  believe  the  political 
and  social  organisms  have  assumed  forms  so  distinct  and  an- 
tagonistic, that  a  reconcilement  of  them  is  simply  an  impos- 
sibility. To  cite  one  or  two  instances — for  I  am  only  making 
suggestions  for  your  consideration  in  connection  with  the 
matter  in  hand:  In  the  free  States,  the  simple,  isolated,  exclu- 
sive, sole  political  principle  is  a  pure  democracy  of  mere 
numbers,  save  a  scarcely  discernible  modification,  by  a  vague 
and  undefined  form  of  representation.  In  these  States  there 
can  be  no  departure  from  this  principle  in  its  extremest  in- 
tensity. The  admission  of  the  slightest  adverse  element  is 
forbidden  by  the  whole  genius  of  the  people  and  their  insti- 
tutions. It  is  as  delicate  in  its  sensitiveness  as  personal  right 
in  England,  or  slavery  in  Carolina.  It  is  the  vitalizing  princi- 
ple, the  breath  of  the  life  of  Northern  socialism.  The  al- 
mighty power  of  numbers  is  the  basis  of  all  social  agreement 
in  the  Northern  States.  A  fearful  illustration  of  this  is  at  this 
moment  exhibiting  its  results  in  the  Government  under  which 
you  are  consenting  to  live.  That  Government  was  "instituted 
and  appointed "  to  protect  and  secure  equally  the  interest  of 


21 

the  parts.  By  the  agency  of  mere  numbers,  one  section  has 
been  restricted  and  another  expanded  in  territory;  one  section 
has  been  unduly  and  oppressively  taxed,  and  one  section  has 
been  brought  to  imminent  peril ;  and  in  this  hour  the  people 
of  the  North  are  consulting  whether  they  can  subjugate  the 
people  of  the  South  by  the  right  of  number. 

The  "government  by  the  people"  is  equally  the  rule  of  the 
South,  but  the  modification  of  the  "rule  of  numbers"  is  so 
essential,  in  the  slave  States,  that  it  cannot  co-exist  with  the 
same  principle  in  its  unrestricted  form.  In  the  South,  it  is 
controlled,  perhaps  made  absolutely  subject,  by  the  fact  that 
the  recognition  of  a  specific  property  is  essential  to  the  vitali- 
zation  of  the  social  and  political  organisms.  If,  then,  you  at- 
tempt to  institute  the  rule  of  either  form  into  the  organism  of 
the  other,  you  instantly  destroy  the  section  you  invade.  To 
proclaim  to  the  North  that  numbers  shall  not  be  absolute, 
would  be  as  offensive  as  to  proclaim  the  extinction  of  Slavery 
in  the  South.  The  element  of  property  would  neutralize  the 
entire  political  system  at  the  North  ;  its  exclusion  would  sub- 
vert the  whole  organism  of  the  South. 

But  there  is  another  element  of  disintegration  and  repulsion, 
still  more  potent  than  the  geographical  or  the  political  sever- 
ance. It  comes  of  the  deep-seated,  but  active,  religious  senti- 
ment, which  belongs  to  both  people,  having  arrayed  itself  on 
the  sides  of  the  sections.  This  diversity,  at  this  moment,  is 
appearing,  not  in  forms  of  denominational  polemics,  but  in 
shapes  as  bloody  and  terrible  as  Religion  has  ever  assumed 
since  Christ  came  to  the  earth.  Its  representative,  the  Church, 
has  bared  her  arm  for  the  conflict — her  sword  is  already  flash- 
ing in  the  glare  of  the  torch  of  fanaticism — and  the  history  of 
the  world  tells  us  that  when  that  sword  cleaves  asunder,  no 
human  surgery  can  heal  the  wound.  There  is  not  one  Chris- 
tian slaveholder  here,  no  matter  how  near  he  may  be  to  his 
meek  and  lowly  Master,  who  does  not  feel  in  his  heart,  that 
from  the  point  of  that  sword  is  now  dripping  the  last  drop  of 


22 

sympathy  which  bound  him  to  his  brethren  of  the  North. 
"With  demoniac  rage,  they  have  set  the  Lamb  of  God  between 
their  seed  and  our  seed. 

I  have  run  rapidly  over  these  diversities  to  show  that  they 
pervade  the  entire  composition  of  the  social  systems  of  the 
two  sections,  and  that,  therefore,  we  believe  the  political  union 
unnatural  and  monstrous ;  and  its  offspring  must  be  abortive 
and  fruitless,  save  of  that  fearful  brood  of  woes  which  must 
always  come  from  such  conjunctions. 

We  believe,  as  a  completely  logical  and  reasonable  deduc- 
tion from  these  repellent  attributes  of  the  Northern  and  South- 
ern sections  of  the  late  Confederacy,  there  have  arisen  those 
constructions  of  the  terms  of  confederation,  which  have  con- 
verted a  Government  of  consent  into  a  Government  of  force ; 
which  have  driven  seven  States  to  abandon  that  Government ; 
which  have,  for  sixty  days,  kept  loaded  bomb-shells  bearing 
on  the  women  and  children  of  Charleston  ;  which  have  turned 
the  Federal  guns  on  the  Capitol  of  Virginia ;  and  which,  if 
Virginia  murmurs  against  these  guns  being  so  turned,  threat- 
ens to  send  the  ruffians  of  Boston  and  New  York  to  re-enact 
the  scenes  of  1813  at  Portsmouth  and  Hampton. 

Where  these  natural  and  conventional  repulsions  exist,  the 
conflict  is  for  life  and  death.  And  that  conflict  is  now  upon 
you.  Gentlemen  of  Virginia,  you  own  an  empire.  You  are 
very  strong.  You  have  advanced  in  all  the  arts  of  life,  and 
are  very  wise  and  very  skillful.  You  have  achieved  much 
glory,  and  have  great  virtue.  You  may  thus  drag  down  your 
mountain  tops  and  fill  up  your  valleys.  You  may  unite  the 
waters  of  remote  oceans.  You  may  again  pull  down  civil  dy- 
nasties and  religions,  and  on  their  ruins  rebuild  the  forms  of 
liberty  and  faith.  But  I  tell  you,  there  is  no  force  of  human 
power — there  is  no  assay  of  human  art — there  is  no  sanctity  of 
human  touch — which  can  reunite  the  people  of  the  North  and 
the  people  of  the  South  as  political  and  social  equals.  No, 
gentlemen,  never ;  never,  until  by  your  power,  your  art,  and 


no 

your  virtue,  yon  can  unfix  the  unchangeable  economy  of  the 
Eternal  God,  can  you  make  of  the  people  of  the  North  and 
the  people  of  the  South  one  people. 

An  irresistible  instinct  of  self-preservation  has  forced  the 
cotton  States  to  recognize  this  absolute  and  imperative  di- 
versity, and  they  are  now  proceeding  to  erect  their  institutions 
on  its  present  necessity.  The  Northern  States  are  also  mani- 
festing their  recognition  of  the  same  diversity,  by  preparing, 
with  the  aid  of  the  agents  of  non-slavery,  known  as  the  army 
and  navy  of  the  United  States,  to  attempt  the  subjugation  of 
the  Southern  States. 

I  believe  the  question  to  be  decided  by  you,  gentlemen,  is, 
whether  Virginia,  like  the  trembling  Egyptian,  will  skulk  for 
shelter  beneath  the  crumbling  fragments  of  a  past  greatness, 
to  dwell  under  the  scourge  of  a  haughty,  but  mean  task- 
master; or  whether  she  will  step  forth,  and,  with  one  voice, 
hush  the  storm  of  war,  and  keep  the  ancient  glory  of  her 
name.  The  times  must  be  far  more  distempered  than  now — 
indeed,  prophecy  dare  not  seek,  for  it  can  never  reach  that 
future — when  Virginians  will  hesitate  to  decide  this  cpiestion. 

Mr.  President,  the  people  of  South  Carolina  have  declared, 
in  the  language  of  the  various  compacts  between  them  and 
their  confederates,  that  they  have  always  retained  their  sover- 
eignty and  independence;  that  they,  with  their  confederates, 
did  delegate  certain  powers  to  a  common  agent ;  that,  by  their 
confederates,  this  compact  has  been  violated,  and  the  Govern- 
ment established  under  it  has  become  destructive  of  the  pur- 
poses for  which  it  was  established ;  and  it  is,  therefore,  their 
right  to  abolish  that  Government,  so  far  as  it  concerns  them, 
and  institute  another.  They  have  solemnly  ordained,  and  are 
now,  and  have,  for  sixty  clays,  been  maintaining  that  Ordinance 
by  arms,  that  all  political  connection  with  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  is  dissolved. 

The  admitted  rule  on  which  they  have  resorted  to  arms  is, 
''That  a  violation  of  a  perfect  right,  either  committed  or  com- 
mitting, or  with  which  a  people  is  threatened  in  the  future, 


24 

justifies  the  undertaking  of  war — amicable  means  having  been 
tried  in  vain.  When  it  is  evident  that  it  would  be  useless  to 
try  such  means,  justice  requires  a  resort  to  arms." 

On  this  rule,  the  people  of  South  Carolina  have  resorted  to 
arms  in  defence  of  a  "perfect  right." 

As  I  have  stated,  they  have  maintained  this  position  for  a 
reasonable  time,  notwithstanding  their  chief  harbor  has  been 
blockaded  and  their  territory  invaded;  they  have  maintained 
it  in  honor  against  falsehood  and  treachery ;  they  have  main- 
tained it  until  five  millions  of  people  and  six  sovereign  States 
have  joined  with  them  to  form  a  Government,  in  which,  in  the 
language  of  the  eminent  citizen  who  has  been  placed  in  charge 
of  the  Executive  Department  of  that  Government,  there  can 
be  no  cause  for  doubt  that  "the  courage  and  patriotism  of  the 
people  of  the  Confederate  States  will  be  found  equal  to  any 
measures  of  defence  which  our  honor  and  security  may  require. 
Further  obstacles  may  retard  the  progress  of  that  Government, 
but  they  cannot  long  prevent  the  progress  of  a  movement 
sanctified  by  its  justice,  and  sustained  by  a  virtuous  people. 
Reverently  let  us  invoke  the  God  of  our  fathers,  to  guide  and 
protect  us  in  our  eiforts  to  perpetuate  the  principles  which,  by 
His  blessing,  they  were  able  to  vindicate,  establish  and  trans- 
mit to  posterity;  and  with  that  continuance  of  His  favor  ever 
gratefully  acknowledged,  we  will  hopefully  look  forward  to 
success,  peace  and  prosperity." 

Believing  the  rights  violated  and  the  interests  involved  are 
identical  with  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  people  of  Virginia, 
and  remembering  their  ancient  amity  and  their  common  glory, 
the  people  of  South  Carolina  have  instructed  me  to  ask,  earn- 
estly and  respectfully,  that  the  people  of  Virginia  will  join 
them  in  the  protection  of  their  rights  and  interests. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  performed  my  mission,  and  do  now,  in 
the  name  of  my  Government,  tender  to  this  Convention  the 
most  cordial  thanks  for  their  honorable  consideration  of  that 
mission;  and,  in  my  own  behalf,  I. offer  to  the  Convention  and 
the  citizens  of  Virginia,  my  heartfelt  gratitude  for  their  noble 
courtesy  and  most  generous  kindness  to  myself  personally. 


